Although the U.S. is one of the largest Wi-Fi markets, international Wi-Fi is also an area of importance. According to Accuray Research, the global Wi-Fi hot spot market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of more than 16% in the next few years and reach a market size of about $3.3 billion by 2020.
Some of the top trends in international Wi-Fi include:
Connecting the unconnected. Facebook is reportedly investing in efforts with African carriers such as Etisalat, Surf of Kenya and Coollink.ng of Nigeria to provide free Wi-Fi as part of a strategy to increase its customer base in an underpenetrated market where its social network users increased 42% from 2015 to 2016. Through its internet.org project, Facebook announced in early May that Express Wi-Fi would be bringing on an additional 20,000 hot spots over the next few months in India and south Asia through a partnership with Bharti Airtel. Express Wi-Fi is live in India, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria and Indonesia. Meanwhile, Google has been focusing over the past year on its Project Station to bring free Wi-Fi to users in developing countries, starting with India’s transportation hubs through working with Indian Railways and RailTel. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has also explored the possibility of satellite-based gigabit Wi-Fi that could serve most of the globe.
Supporting new market entrants. India’s Reliance Jio has seen explosive growth in its customer base and mobile data use as it builds out a brand new LTE network, and Wi-Fi is an important part of the carrier’s strategy. It touts the use of portable Wi-Fi routers connected to its LTE network, so that users can connect multiple devices for voice and data services. Since the routers provide a Wi-Fi front end, users don’t have to purchase phones that support Jio bands.
Fending off competitive pressure. Zimbabwe is one example of a market with very competitive Wi-Fi-based offers from service providers. Market holdout Telecel finally launched a Wi-Fi hotspot service in March with more than 70 hot spot locations to compete with offerings from existing market players, and Econet is expanding its network through a trial of Wi-Fi equipped mini-busses so that customers have broader access to their Wi-Fi services. Also, Vodafone India recently launched managed Wi-Fi as-a-service for enterprise, called SuperWi-Fi, a move seen in part as a response to consumer service pressure from Reliance Jio.
Adlane Fellah, managing director of Wi-Fi 360, said that international Wi-Fi-based offers can also be a boost to domestic carriers like AT&T. He said that while mobile network operators are often wary about Wi-Fi cannibalizing their cellular revenues, AT&T found just the opposite in the case of international customers.
“They have noticed that by building international Wi-Fi roaming into a data plan, it has actually increased the usage of their cellular data,” Fellah said. “It’s counter-intuitive, but by enabling that for international customers, it has positively impacted cellular usage.”
Insights and analytics. Jeff Abramowitz, president of Wi-Fi services provider Cloud4Wi, said that Europe is “a little bit ahead” of the U.S. in some of its retail and transportation-related use of Wi-Fi in public spaces. Cloud4Wi supported work with Italian State Railways Group, Gruppo FS Italiane, on its project “Wi-Life Station” for a better digital experience. The project utilized Cisco Meraki hardware in 14 stations and provided users with a virtual station with information available in nine languages such as maps and travel guides, the ability to interact with users via context aware services such as local event promotions. User behavior data could be accessed by various stakeholders, such as alerting police as to unusual crowds.
For more information on trends in Wi-Fi and unlicensed spectrum, download RCR Wireless News’ recent special report and check out the accompanying webinar.
